“That’s right,” agreed Professor Snodgrass. “This is going to be a perilous search.”
“But we won’t give up on that account!” cried Ned.
“I guess not!” agreed the two Westerners.
The party halted for a short time for dinner, and then resumed looking for the gold. The marks of the flood were plainly to be seen, and put them on the right trail.
“Look low,” advised Mr. Snodgrass. “Gold is about the heaviest metal there is, and it will lodge low down. Look at the very bottom of where the flood swept.”
Their search was indeed perilous and full of danger. Several times one or the other of them just managed to get out of the way as a big boulder came crashing down. But they found not the slightest trace of gold. It all seemed to have vanished.
Bob, who had strayed ahead of the others, leaped from one stone to another to get into a little depression where he thought he might find some of the yellow nuggets. As he did so he dislodged a small stone, which fell with a crash.
The silence that followed was broken by a menacing growl, and Bob, looking quickly ahead of him, saw, crouched on the trunk of a dead tree, a tawny yellow body—a mountain lion ready to spring!